Boost your weekly conversions by 200-500%
Keep your referral program fresh and fun in your customer’s minds. Seasonal or burst promotions, both of which are limited time offers, can trigger an influx in advocacy shares and friend conversions resulting in both short-term and long-term gains.
In the short-term, a limited time offer drives an urgency to share within the limited period of time and benefit from the special reward structure. Timed offers also create a buzz around the program which drives overall program awareness and can lead to long-term program success.
Seasonal - These offers touch your audience when they need your product or services most. For example, a flower shop might run a Valentine’s or Mother’s Day promotion, and clothing retailers might run a promotion at Back-to-School or during the Christmas season.
Burst - One of the most popular and effective burst promotions is the double your rewards promotion. A week of double rewards can boost your weekly conversions by 200%-500%. Additional burst promotion ideas: a quarterly special to your top advocates or a Friends and Family promotion.
Seasonal and burst promotions are also a great time to test out a new design idea, feature, or offer structure. If the promotion drives the desired results, you may want to consider leaving the offer structure in place for the long term.
Quick steps to promotion
Are you ready to benefit from the boost in advocacy that these types of promotions yield? Then, let’s get started!
Determine your new offer structure and dates of promotion.
Instructions on how to launch a Burst yourself in My.Extole are outline in this article
Or you can always contact your Client Services Manager to let them know you want to run a limited time offer and hand off the offer structure and dates of promotion.
Keep in mind, if your offer is delivered via coupon code, you will need to supply Extole with your coupon codes prior to launching the promotion.
Don't forget to revise your Terms and Conditions.
Coordinate a date and time to turn off the old offer and launch the new one.
Be sure to send out an email drop to your advocate and customer base the day your limited time offer goes live.
Best practices
To ensure your seasonal or burst promotion has the best chance of performing well, driving up to a 5x increase in advocacy, keep these best practices in mind:
What are your biggest revenue months and why? Holiday season? Back-to-School? Valentine’s Day? Tax Day? Mother’s Day? Summertime? Football season? Plan your next seasonal or burst campaign around your next big sales month.
Emphasize the benefit to the friend as well as the advocate
Add a fresh, creative twist to the promotion (e.g., design a theme)
Add urgency (e.g., share because it’s St. Patrick’s Day!)
Use a simple and direct call-to-action (CTA)
Sample performance results
Burst Promotion - Double Rewards Example
One of our retail customers has run multiple “double rewards week” promotions seeing both immediate results and long-lasting effects after the promotions ended. Their double rewards week promotions typically yield
5x the conversions compared to their standard weekly average
2x the conversions compared to their highest converting week
13.5% overall increase in their conversion rate
Seasonal Promotion - Saint Patrick’s Day Example
One of our Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers designed a promotional campaign around St. Patrick’s Day. This software provider did not increase or change their offer structure; they simply reached out to their customers through promotional emails and designed a themed campaign.
They sent out two, themed email drops over a one month period which yielded a 30% hike in their advocacy rate – jumping from their average of 53% to 83%.
Seasonal Promotion - Holiday Examples
The holiday season is the perfect time to promote the campaign with new holiday themed creatives. This can also be run in conjunction with a holiday burst campaign to generate additional buzz. A simple creative refresh along with a themed email drop will help get your customers into the giving spirit!
Below are a few examples of how a holiday season creative refresh can be promoted:
